Sunday, December 30, 2012

Looks Like We Made It: Year End Making

I’ve been stockpiling ideas lately: things I want to make,
things I want to write about. I’m saving them up for the New Year when it’s
fresh and holiday time restores to everyday time. This last post of 2012, my
seventieth, incidentally, takes care of a little house keeping. There’s a few
projects I completed in the last months that need documentation before the year
is out. No year end recap to be found here, but rather a hurried show-and-tell of
last minute crafting before we’re pushed into 2013.

You may remember that I was commissioned to make a special
hush-hush birthday crown for a friend here in Berlin. Her husband turned
forty-five in November and she threw him a Moustache themed birthday party
(sound familiar?) I had heaps of fun making this crown. I collected a few bits
of inspiration that I shared with my friend before the build to make sure I was
on the right track. She assured me I was.

It also gave me a chance to use my new HP DeskJet 1000 color
inkjet printer and printable cotton fabric. I’ve often seen printable fabric
used in quilting and fabric book making to transfer photos onto fabric and have
coveted the technology. Once I realized how inexpensive these printers actually
were—they get you on the toner cartridges—I splurged. Since we have a laser
printer for documents, the color printer would only be used infrequently for
crafting. I’m seriously hooked, though, and keep trying to find things to print
out on fabric. My latest obsession: labels for everything. The photo below is
of the keepsake label I printed for the outfit Lennon wore to his first birthday party. The printer is a stop-gap measure until I can afford an embroidery
machine—an expense that can't truly be justified when I currently sew on a borrowed machine.

Just before I was finished with the crown, I looked over my
friend’s original email request which explained that the color theme for the party
was Tiffany blue and black and asked that I incorporate these somehow.
Oops! The black was taken care of but I had to get creative in bringing in the
blue, which, in the end, added a surprising twist to the color story.

Onto my Christmas making! I made stockings for all four
members of my family. Though one of them won’t join us until summer, we’ve
already chosen his name and it has been printed on fabric and attached to his
stocking. All four hung in our living room but L.I.B.’s (Little Inside Baby)
stocking included a piece of paper covering the name. The stockings are made
from white burlap, natural linen, and white cotton rick-rack. I lined them with
market stall unbleached cotton.

Each year I make an ornament for our tree. Last year, I allowed Paloma’s Nest to do so as it was Lennon’s first Christmas and required something extra special. Next year, L.I.B. will also receive a Paloma’s Nest ornament. This year, there seemed no better way to mark these Holidays than with a picture of what is to come in 2013. I scanned L.I.B.’s photo from the amazing 3-D ultrasound we received when he was eleven weeks in gestation and printed it out in color on the printable cotton. From there, I made a simple pillow with blue rick-rack trim. I love how chunky it is on the tree, just as the previous year’s ornaments are. I can’t wait for our tree to be overwhelmed by big, homemade ornaments from so many happy Christmases.

About Me

Amy is a native Californian who started her family with husband Nicholas in Berlin Germany. After giving birth to a son in 2011 and a daughter in 2013, Amy returned with her family to the SF Bay Area and began work in her dream job as an Arts Educator. In her pre-Mama life, she ran theatre companies, performed, designed costumes, and worked in arts administration. She writes about motherhood, making, DIY craftiness while sorting through the messy, imperfect, chocolate stained world of a woman approaching the good years.